How your food would look if not genetically modified over millennia?

Ever wonder how your food would be without any human intervention over the course of agriculture history? For thousands of years, farmers have manipulated their crops to get the best yields and have resulted in many of the produce you see today.

Also, it’s informative to note that more than 3000 grains, fruits and vegetables have been “created” in a laboratory by subjecting them with gamma rays and/or highly toxic chemicals to artificially scramble their DNA–and have since been marketed as organic, including Ruby Red grapefruits and almost of the most flavorful and top selling organic Italian pasta. Read about that here: Pasta? Ruby grapefruits? Why organic devotees love foods mutated by radiation and chemicals

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Douglas Ewer

But direct modification is different WAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Jacob w

“They blast the DNA with gold and other TOXINS!” That is the funniest shot I have ever heard…. “blasting DNA….” give me a break. Lol

Prism

Where is that mentioned??

AB

well yeah, why do you think they call it ‘golden rice’ if it doesn’t have gold atoms blasting into various rice DNAs

dmn88me

It’s called Golden Rice because they added a series of genes to make it produce beta carotene.

If you’re going to talk, make sure you’re not talking out of your ass.

xxxyyz

It’s called sarcasm because he said something different than he actually meant.

If you’re going to comment, make sure you’re not talking like an asshole who didn’t listen before he spoke.

AB

you’re very dumb, possibly due to nutrient deficiency. maybe you need golden rice in your life.

Ass

before talking out of your ass make sure you’re not talking out your ass with his ass and your ass before an ass you ass ass ass ass

AB

butt*

Codie Petersen

They are refering to the gene gun. Personally other natural (viruses and bacteria) are more effective. But so what if they do. Who gives a fuck, it’s such an insignificant amount that they are using gold.

hydrocarbonharry

nonsense. The ‘gold’ is the beta carotene from carrots.
But the Luddites want third world children to die, rather than save them with a remarkable product.
The only thing poisonous is the luddites who prevent sensible cures to their wild-eyed, unscientific ideology

Codie Petersen

To be clear though they really do use gold in some cases. Although it is only on the original callus and last time I checked plants do not have the ability to replicate gold from sun energy. So I don’t see how that can be a huge concern for widespread contamination.

Dr. M

Gold isn’t a toxin…

joecrouse

yes it is technically its a heavy metal in large doses it very toxic

https://www.youtube.com/user/PhilosofikalOfficial Philosofikal

What isn’t

Shayla Gibson

Most homeopathic medicines – unless you drink enough to hit a toxic quantity of water…

https://www.youtube.com/user/PhilosofikalOfficial Philosofikal

Anything is toxic if you have “too much” of it.

hydrocarbonharry

GOLD IS INERT! IT DOES NOT CHEMICALLY REACT TO OTHER SUBSTANCES.

IT IS NOT TOXIC!

YES, I AM SHOUTING AT YOUR STUPIDITY!

Hadrian Embalsado

As long it’s pure gold and not of its alloys and compounds.

joecrouse

It does react its rather very reactive. (having a valence of 2. )which is less than that of carbon but more than that of say potasium.

Skye the article is very specific “colloidal metallic gold (CMG) in its nano-particulate form” do you realize the process to make gold into “colloidal metallic gold (CMG) in its nano-particulate form”. It not easy and has to be done in the lab, so your argument is a non-topical and a strawman.

TheCrimsonFuckr

It’s an inert heavy metal, it passes through you. That being said if the qualification for something being a toxin is now “in large doses is very toxic”, then just about everything in a multivitamin short of vitamin c is a toxin.

CruisingTroll

Even Vitamin C is a toxin in large doses. I guarantee that if I dump a full load of Vitamin C from Big Muskie onto someone, they would die.

Hadrian Embalsado

Sounds like an evil plan. I like it.

CruisingTroll

When somebody complains, just explain it as a megadose to fight off a cold.

Hadrian Embalsado

OMG IKR?

Patsy McMichael

Well….that is why saccharin was taken off the market….lab rats were give saccharin “in large doses” over a long period of time and it caused cancer…..no more saccharin.

joecrouse

actually you can OD on vitamin C too crimson. it destroys nerves.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Everything is toxic in large enough doses.

Dr. M

In large doses darn near everything is toxic, water and oxygen two excellent examples – things we need to survive. But in large enough doses will kill us. Gold, in the doses used for medicine, is non-toxic. It is inert and will not react.

Edmund

It is when someone smacks you upside the head with a gold hammer.

Brooke Heppinstall Kroenung

Yes, I get it. I agree with it. But, a short comment on GM and hybridization should be offside here. Or come up w/an infographic on GE, GM, hybridization, etc..Define your terms. First year college!!

Dave Brown

But….but….but…..this is “natural”!!!

Brian Gordon

Just like asbestos and horse manure

sotarrthewizard

. . . and uranium and botulinin toxin are all natural as well !!!!

Rev. Blemmershit

Ironically you chucklefucks are posting this on a website called “genetic literacy”.

sotarrthewizard

Irony isn’t involved: this is pure sarcasm. . .

Clifford Ageloff

Why does my broccoli look like it the picture? Was it Heirloom broccoli?

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/ Jon Entine

How could it look like that? It’s inedible…It’s almost like a weed.

A

I mean… that’s what broccoli looks like way past it’s harvest time when it begins to flower… Except I’d say broccoli looks a bit bushier.

shockadow

Hello “load of shit” people. What other bullshit are you making up today?

Prism

Not the type you guys make.. for sure.

disqus_zXLbNfw1Yi

Nice – sparkling wit from a Natural News subscriber.

D Birkley

These are distant cousins that are NOT the same as what we eat. The reason is that we have cultivated things for over 10K years and mostly things are what they seem. I grow heirloom tomatoes and they still look like tomatoes, but not to the extremes you see here. Someone is just trying to pull a fast one on us.

Prism

No fast one here. I am an agriculturist and what they are potraying is true. They are not showing the full story though. The wild tomatoes are actually pretty tiny, the size of small marbles and very bitter. They still grow in the mountains of south India (where I am from). Also, the rice.. willd ones are simply not edible by modern man. Have you eaten wild chickens before they were bred and modified in to the fat ones we have now. Have you seen real silkworm moths (bombyx mori), they have lost their flight skills over 3000 years of domestication. Men have been genetically modifying everything and the latest molecular biology based modificiation is actually less harmful since we are only moving the gene we need rather than a whole family of them (in traditional breeding) just to get the one gene we want.

MrTomato

Wild tomatos are not from India, but from the American continent.

Viriato77

Well the picture above says, aubergine/eggplant so perhaps Prism mis-typed. Eggplants are an Old World crop plant. BUT eggplants and tomatoes are part of the same genus, Solanum which includes so common “wild” ancestor in India is not implausible.

Prism

You are right. The same family solanaceae. Eggplants are also called Brinjals. Their wild relatives are found wherever the current cultivars are cultivated.

joecrouse

tomatoes are also related to nightshade.

Prism

Actually in south america. but their wild relatives are still present all over the world, as tomatoes were bred and cultivated for millenia. Tomatoes did not exactly wait till they were domesticised into the tasty red ones you know till they were suddenly exported from America to the rest of the world, you know. The transition as always was a gradual one, resulting in their relative wild cultivars spreading all through the world just like rice was.

me

yeah and it would probably be much better for us too. Thanks for completely missing the point. There is a massive difference between Genetic modification and hybridization which even occurs naturally in some cases. Here is a thought, if you want to completely confuse everyone with your misinformation, perhaps disable the comment section. As you can see everyone here already aware of the difference. Go cash your monsanto check and think about it.

Reality

It’s not misinformation, just because we now can modify genetics on a smaller scale directly doesn’t make it any different. Not to mention most of that stuff in it’s original form up there is poison to us. If we had not had used selective crossbreeding and other techniques to change the plants we wouldn’t be eating most vegetables we do today. We have been modifying the genetics of food and animals for thousands and thousands of years. Now we have the ability to it much more accurately without all the all guess work, which makes it a much safer process, but now people bitch. Fucking retards.

cmac

We have ZERO idea what will happen when we insert fish DNA and pesticide absorbing genes into corn. It IS misinformation to compare that process to selective breeding dickhead. Fucking retard.

Andreas

Maybe *YOU* have zero idea what happens. We don’t insert random fish DNA but a specific part with defined function. Just google the genetic code.
I also never read any scientific paper where they inserted pesticide *absorbing* genes. They usually add pesticide destroying genes. Still, traces of the pesticides can remain on the leaves after harvesting, and that *is a real concern*. But DNA modification causes no harm at all.

cmac

A specific gene, with a defined function in a fish may not have the same specific effect within a plant. To say they know exactly what will happen is BS. Do you know the failure rate in these experiments before they get a viable seed product? If it was so perfect and natural, it would just take on the first try. It doesn’t. It creates a bunch of failed organisms before they get it right.

Joshua

Genes have the same effect no matter where they’re expressed. A “gene” as you know it, is nothing more than a series of nucleic acids that all ribosomes in Eukaryotic species associate with tRNAs carrying codon specific amino acids, which are linked together to form a protein that has a specific function. This is how they have taken GFP and put it in all sorts of animals (including the GloFish you can find at the local petstore). To be fair, protein function can be diminished or increased based on the environmental factors in which they are operating (i.e. temperature, acidity, etc), but to be clear, these are not usually concern as most organisms work in a defined homeostatic range that is known prior to vector introduction.

cmac

Let me correct myself. The genes inserted were not inserted to absorb more residual from systemic pesticides, but that is the unintended result or roundup ready organism. I was using shorthand and presented my idea poorly.

Systemic pesticides are chemicals that are actually absorbed by a plant when applied to seeds, soil, or leaves. The chemicals then circulate through the plant’s tissues, killing the insects that feed on them. Monsanto decided to make it more effective, which is why they modified the roundup ready line.Unfortunately the systemic pesticide residues don’t come out. No matter how hard they try they are still INSIDE the plant. They are still INSIDE the fruit, which we eat. An unintended consequence these masters of GMO didn’t see coming.

The other unintended result of this experiment with GMO’s is what is killing the bees and causing colony collapse. Because the bees don’t know when the risk from systemic pesticides has diminished, they feed on the pollen when it is at it’s highest concentration, and bring that back to the colony. It is like releasing nerve gas inside the colony. Yet more unintended GMO consequences.

SO when they tell you they know what that specific part of that specific gene will do and the consequences it will cause, it is complete bullshit and the height of arrogance.

Their next answer will be to modify humans and bees to resist systemic pesticides. OR, we could just step back from this technology and produce higher yields like we always have, by selective breeding and evolution.

David Brown

You are confusing herbicide tolerant crops with Bt crops. Perhaps you shouldn’t be accusing others of arrogance while simultaneously lecturing about things that you clearly don’t understand?

science rules

Great job copying a blog post from “Motherearthnews” verbatim.

Here’s what you need to understand. There is as much scientific consensus behind the viability and safety of GMOs as there is behind global warming and evolution. THis is why you can’t find a better source for your tripe than hippie natural medicine blogs.

And yes, there cross species gene transfer happens all the time in nature it’s actually super common. Check the number of genes Humans share with Fish or Potatoes and prepare to be amazed.

Falcon D. Stormvoice

There’s certainly more consensus for the safety and viability of GMO crops than there is for global warming. Unless, by global warming consensus, you simply mean the acknowledgement of the existence of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

The number of genes we share with fish and potatoes does not reflect the level of cross species gene transfer happening.

http://www.jonentine.com Jon Entine

There is natural cross species transfer going on all the time. So what you are saying is that you support GMOs when there is no cross species events? Lots of new GM crops involve knocking out genes (such as allergenic proteins) or adding in species same genes. Glad to see you are open minded and embrace advanced GM breeding!!! Good to see an open mind.

doubting_rich

Except that is not causing colony collapse. The pattern of bee population change (massively exaggerated by environmental activists of course) proves there is no connection to the pesticides claimed to be responsible.

David Brown

Actually, the scientists working on these problems have a very good idea of what happens. And the reason why such transfers work in the first place is that all living organisms share large chunks of DNA. That’s right, there is a lot of fish DNA in you. Moreover, the results of transgenic breeding are thoroughly evaluated. Every new protein is tested for toxicity and allergens.

If you have a strong argument to make, you shouldn’t have to repeatedly insult. Clearly you don’t know everything about the topic at hand, so perhaps if you engaged construstively in a dialogue you would be able to learn something.

Falcon D. Stormvoice

“If you have a strong argument to make, you shouldn’t have to repeatedly insult.”

Absolutely correct. Then again, this rationale also applies to the user named ‘Reality’.

lennyhipp

“we insert fish DNA and pesticide absorbing genes into corn”
PLEASE SHOW ME this was done in food.

http://www.jonentine.com Jon Entine

There is no such thing as a “pesticide absorbing gene” let alone one put into corn. There is a gene that makes corn herbicide resistant and another that programs corn and other plants to release natural chemicals–bacteria used by organic farmers, and perfectly safe to humans.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Wow, the power of your arguments totally convinced me.

Andreas

Most Anti-GMO websites disabled comments. Says a lot about an educated dialogue between the two sides.

Lulu

Selective Breeding is not the same as Genetic Engineering!

Andreas

Yes it is

cmac

No, it really isn’t you freak. You can keep saying it is, but your ignorance does not trump facts.

GMOs have genes in them they would never acquire through mutation or evolution in nature. It is grabbing whatever gene you like from any animal or plant and forcing it into a DNA strand regardless of consequence.

Selective breeding is blending two extremely similar and compatible members of the same genus (and often species) to speed the evolutionary process.

David Brown

Wow, ad homenim and ignorance in the same post. Selection involves selecting a particular plant for traits of interest and replanting the seeds from that plant to generate more of such plants. Farmers have used selective breeding for millennia. Crossing involves fertilizing one plant with the pollen from another, often substantially different plant. The results of a cross are often hard to fully predict. Mutagenesis is a technique whereby scientists cause rapid, random mutations in plant or seed DNA through radiation or chemical treatments, then screen these results for traits of interest. This has been used since the 1950s, and in fact is approved for certified organic farming. Mutagenic and transgenic techniques both introduce DNA sequences that would not likely be found naturally in the target plant (that is the whole reason for the use of these techniques), but of course due to natural mutations anything is possible. Without natural mutations we wouldn’t have the diversity of genetic material needed for traditional breeding.

Ellamenta

Your argument would be more effective if it were not couched in such arrogant, dismissive, and insulting terms. Just saying.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

You call the man ignorant but don’t actually address his arguments. You might moderated the statement a bit, but it still stands. You can do things with modern genetic engineering you would never be able to do with selective breeding and cross-breeding. Therefore, the positive experience gathered from millennia of farming is not actually useful in assessing the possible risks of modern genetic engineering.

David Brown

You might want look up mutagenic breeding techniques, or radiation gardens. Mutagenesis is much riskier than transgenic techniques but mutagenic crops have been with us for 60 years and are even allowed in certified organic ag. We can do anything with mutagenic techniques that we do with transgenic techniques, it is just much slower, messier and less effective. The fact is that transgenic techniques are more precise than crossing or mutagenesis. And we have selected for 1000s of years traits that would never occur in nature. That is why most crops can’t survive and reproduce in the wild.

Lennyhipp

“It is grabbing whatever gene you like from any animal or plant and forcing it into a DNA strand regardless of consequence”
bwahahhahhahahaaaaaaaa! you’re an imbecile. SHOW ME evidence this is done. SHOW ME evidence GMO is ANY different than naturally hybridized produce.

Trolling for Hollers

That’s better… get the name-calling right up front.

Falcon D. Stormvoice

“GMOs have genes in them they would never acquire through mutation or evolution in nature.”

You could get any gene through mutation, what a stupid thing to say.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

But some would be incredibly improbable, practically impossible, so maybe it is not that stupid after all?

Falcon D. Stormvoice

All evolution is incredibly improbable to the point of being practically impossible. But hey — monkeys, typewriters, Shakespeare, all that jazz. You don’t get to cherry pick this as being the exception to the rule.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

If it were practically impossible, it wouldn’t have happened. As you know, the improbability of evolution is cumulative, so the monkeys with typewriters argument doesn’t apply here (although creationists tend to think it does).
On the other hand, certain processes cannot be broken down into smaller steps that each could survive. They are more improbable than the other very improbable things.

Kevin Folta

I agree they are not the same. Genetic engineering is much more precise, predictable and safe. It is faster, more reliable and allows science to move traits through barriers that breeding can’t possibly tackle. Selective breeding is not natural, the products do not exist in nature and it requires human intervention. GM is just a precise and controllable extension of it.

joecrouse

incorect. the Round up resistance gene developed from corn arose naturally from corn that was growing near train tracks treated by the Railroad they use ROUNDUP to clear weeds and well everything growing near the train tracks.

Brian

Because plants would totally just do this on their own without human interference, amirite?

hydrocarbonharry

SO you are content allowing millions of thrid world children die from malnutrition, than allow golden rice to save them.
How MALTHUSIAN of you……………

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Wow, that was taking it to the lowest level yet.
You know, mosts people starving in the world do so because of poverty, in areas where the food is actually there but they cannot afford to buy it. If we really care about the starving children in the world, the really efficient solution would be political. No amounts of golden rice will save children from starving that are denied the food that already exists.

http://www.jonentine.com Jon Entine

You can’t change politics overnight. You can provide vitamin enhanced food with no patent controls and at lower cost than conventional and far, far lower than organic farms. GM crops are part of the solution, not the solution. Those who take GM foods off the table are condemning people to die and suffer.

Luigi Novi

Yeah, genetic engineering is SAFER. Genetic engineering allows the engineers to select precisely which genes they want and which they do not. In nature, this is not possible, because unknown genes can become expressed in a manner that can be more unpredictable.

joecrouse

yep same thing there may be more steps in the end product but its manipulation on the genetic level

Hadrian Embalsado

Anti-GMO’s are the reasons we can’t have nicer things.

Cecile Charles

Yes, there is nothing like pretty poison.

Brian

Except it’s not really poison.

Kim Morton

True. It is much worse.

AHH!!!

Silly.. What do you eat?.. Birch bark.. Practically everything we eat has been changed for the better by our scientists.

jajajajaja

the issue is theres a difference between the genetic modification we have done through seed selection and splicing done in agriculture over the last few 1000s of years VS the genome chem. being done in the last half century.

Hadrian Embalsado

Well we don’t have a millennium to feed the people in Africa.

Jim Holroyd

The most populous states aren’t in Africa…China, India, USA and Indonesia…

Hadrian Embalsado

Since they are dying?

Mauricio Quintero

Oh, they are not as populated? Self centered biatch

Karen Bracco Aguayo

And that is the goal of these chemical companies… to feed Africa? Because it’s your perception that they simply cannot grow natural seeds? And that it’s not the African government that is the problem?
I have never seen so many misinformed.

Joey B

Nothing like over the top rhetoric from people who haven’t got the first clue what they are talking about.

kns98

says who? it’s not like the Anti GMOs are winning. Most of what you eat is probably GMO already. Do you want fries with that?

Hadrian Embalsado

I want my fries with some GMO Ketchup.

kns98

You should get them from McD’s. Eat them three time a day. It’ll do wonders for your digestive system.

Rev. Blemmershit

GMO’s and cultivated plants are a bit different… It’s like how through breeding wolves we created dogs, a technically different species.

TRUTH

No it’s not. breeding wolves to create dogs is still a natural process in which nature is forming the outcome of a NATURAL breeding that happens between two of the SAME SPECIES, even though it is still influenced by humans. GMO’S do not allow for the guidance of nature (which has far greater wisdom than us humans) and is a forced and entirely UN NATURAL process!!

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/ Jon Entine

None of the food you eat today was bred naturally. Italian wheat–the essence of the world’s best pasta–was created in a laboratory over many years of research by subjecting wheat varietals (which themselves were nothing like nature created them as they’ve been bred to carry multiple genomes to make them edible, which is not naturally found in nature) to bombardment by gamma rays and chemicals. Do you like Ruby Red grapefruits? I like the organic kind myself…the ones created in a laboratory in the 1940s over six years by radiating the seeds of “natural” grapefruits. Humans by definition change and manipulate nature–and we’ve done so for thousands of years. Nothing you eat is as nature created it. When man intervenes, the term “natural process” is meaningless.

Christina Brooks

This comment should have way more ups/likes.

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

Why? It’s wrong.

It falls into the anthropogenic fallacy by suggesting that “nature” is guided, has intent and has knowledge about what it’s doing.

A more accurate way of describing that analogy would be to say that unguided natural selection is a cannon (100’s of thousands of genes being changed in an uncontrolled manner), guided natural selection is a shotgun (thousands of genes being changed in a mostly uncontrolled manner) and GMO is a scalpel (typically less than 10 (I don’t recall the source now) genes being changed in a very controlled manner).

Matthew Curry Pye

They won in europe…

Mom on Fire

Like cancer??? :). Plus these pictures are ridiculous. Do your research and not look at propaganda. It’s amazing even from this sight how many people are brain washed into believing we need to rely on corporations to feed us. I have come to learn we are disabling ourselves by not learning about food and just trusting some stranger to feed us. I think plastic in Subway bread doesn’t sound very good, but millions have been eating it, unknowingly. We are at a crisis. 50 years ago 1/3 of the nation were farmers using only 2-3 pesticides on crops, now with GMO’s, only 2 percent are farmers and they now use 60-70 pesticides on our food. Umm I think all the poisons have gotten to your brain.

Hadrian Embalsado

I wish we knew what foods have pesticide in them.

Brian

This comment is so rife with inaccuracy it’s not possible to address it.

brittany

GMOs are linked to many health issues though ….

Hadrian Embalsado

What health issues? Any death counts yet? Haven’t people forgot how agriculture works?

cmac

This is how your food would look if selective breeding and hybridization had not occurred. This is not the same as genetic engineering, where salmon DNA is inserted into a tomato, or nightshade DNA is inserted into corn. One is a natural process. The other creates frankenfood that could not occur in nature as it might with hybridization.

They are completely different processes. Hope those Monsanto shill checks warm your pocket for this misinformation, dickhead.

Andreas

With genetic engineering you get clones of the plants with just one gene added.

By selective breading, you mix up the ~ 57000 genes randomly from mother and father.

Believe it or not, GM is safer than traditional breeding.

And no, I don’t get paid by Monsanto (though I’d really like that ), I just informed myself about GM.

cmac

More BS andreas. With selective breeding you are blending two pairs of 57000 genes that are compatible and meant to pair up and replicate in the hopes a few pairs change slightly. You are simply speeding up the natural process of mutation and evolution. This is a tried and true method used for thousands of years.

Wish Genetic modification, you are introducing a gene that has never and would never find it’s way into those same 57000 base pairs and forcing an organism to completely change it’s nature. This is bypassing evolution and there is no knowing the consequences. This method with unknown consequences that has been around for less than a decade.

enmaku

There is no such thing as a gene that “doesn’t belong” in one species or “does belong” in another. It’s not like adding some salmon DNA to corn turns corn into salmon.

For the most part, the only thing DNA really does is code for a sequence of amino acids that self-fold into structured proteins. If we find a protein in one genome that could be useful to another it’s usually pretty trivial to snip out the section of the genome that codes for it and insert it elsewhere. This has become a controversy because the usefulness and safety of many proteins is not adequately proven, but those aren’t the ones we’re transplanting.

Sure, cutting and pasting about 200 base pairs can do scary things like make a mouse glow in the dark, but it can also do awesome things like make crops that can grow with less water or produce safe natural pesticides within its own cells.

In short, you’re not being served some kind of experimental fish-corn hybrid, you’re being served a very well-tested known-safe piece of corn that produces one or two additional proteins that corn doesn’t normally produce. Those proteins represent a tiny isolated change that it’s quite easy to test the safety and efficacy of and the science is NOT out on this.

GMO crops feed much of the developing world and countless lives have been saved by more resilient strains of various crops being available in those markets. It’s predicted that without GMO crops as much as a third of the world would have nothing to eat. Like them or not, these safe GMO crops are saving a lot of lives, so maybe you should leave the conversation alone unless you’re ready to tell me which third of all humans we should kill to switch back to the old way.

Guest

Look up conjugation, transduction, and transfection. You’re clearly not informed on how genes can species hop and it’s important that you know the basics before you say that a gene cannot or will not end up in one species from another. There is a concept called specialized transduction that is especially relevant.

Jason Roder

You need to get over this “meant to” nonsense. There is no “meant to” in nature.

David Brown

We have been eating frankenfood since the 1950s, when researchers started using mutagenesis to randomly scramble plant and seed DNA. Just about everything we eat has a mutagenic ancestor.

But yes, everyone who disagrees with you is a dickhead and a shill for Monsanto. I guess that line of reasoning certainly allows you to feel that you are always right. But it probably gets in the way of learning.

lennyhipp

“where salmon DNA is inserted into a tomato”
PLEASE SHOW ME where this has happened. Also, GMO food goes through MUCH MORE testing than normally hybridized food does.

http://www.jonentine.com Jon Entine

There are no GMO tomatoes so no salmon DNA has been inserted into a tomato. It’s a silly thought anyway as DNA sequences that code for proteins are not species specific. You share DNA with both tomatoes and salmon, for example.

Trolling for Hollers

I have always found that name-calling is a great way to elevate a discussion and set up an audience to be more receptive to what follows. You should have used it up front to be more effective.

Scott Whitehurst

Genetic selection and genetic modification are two different things.

Andreas

Tell me the difference, please.

JamesPHoward

What, if any, difference is there between genetic modification and synthetic biology? Do you see them as equivalent?

sid

bull shit..these are some wild progenitors and has nothing to do with GM

By your definition, would children of arranged marriages qualify as a GMO?

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Prize for weirdest, most off-the-wall comment goes to this one, I think.

JamesPHoward

In cases involving genetic code, is hard not to jump to software analogy. The entire mechanism of natural selection involves occasional “bugs that are really features” that propagate across a species. Selective breeding does indeed speed this up, but is essentially the same mechanism- and it *does* have maladaptive results, but these failures are simply discarded.

As with code, there can be unanticipated interactions, and the magnitude of these can only be increased by more extensive slicing- again, emergence of this kind is central to the mechanism of evolution. Nor is human intervention infallible- see, for example, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Any sane person would have to conclude that there *is* an increased risk of introduction of maladaptive/poorly understood code through more aggressive intervention, but there is *also* an increased opportunity for greater advances. Am unsure why this essentially probabilistic tradeoff is resulting in people fighting like Sneetches.

Nate Fries

most reasoned response here.

but you are aware that no scientific studies have actually found any harm in GM crops (and managed to stand up to peer review), and many peer-reviewed studies affirm their safety, correct? So while there is definitely greater risk, it would appear that either the scientists in control of the modification process have similarly discarded any failures they produced, or at least that thousands of trained research scientists have failed to find evidence of the harm that the anti-GMO crowd believes in.

The English language has many words to describe statements that are at odds with all available evidence. Pick one.

MargaretRC

Any maladaptation that a GMO transfer of genetic material might cause would be to the organism into which the gene was inserted, not to the people that eat that organism.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Or to the ecosystem into which the plants are introduced.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Best response in this thread so far!

Anne-Maren Jansen

But today, do we not live longer lives than ever in human history?

Cecile Charles

Nope, mostly only a few people live longer, and there is a 4000% increase in medical problems. The United States is one of the few countires that supports the use of GMO foods and the health of the nation shows how bad it is when consumed. The Monsanto Corporation, the world’s largest purveyor of genetically modified food seeds, is combating a growing worldwide opposition to GM foods.

Can Monsanto change? Can Monsanto be prodded into another business strategy? And if so, will other GMO seed sellers such as Dupont follow suit? Businesses are typically in it to make money:

Even businesses that develop products that ultimately hurt people or harm the planet. It may take some concerted efforts among consumers and legislators, but eventually, especially among larger publicly-held companies like Monsanto, when the customers stop buying their goods, they can lose control over the market and be forced to make strategy changes.

This may be precisely what has prompted Monsanto to acquire companies that utilize natural cross-breeding methods. Contingency planning may become more vital to Monsanto as growing genetically modified crops face partial or complete bans in the following countries:

Germany

Germans have banned the growing of all GMO crops.

Ireland

GMO crops have been banned from growing in Ireland, and Ireland has a voluntary GM food labeling system.

Austria, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Bulgaria

These countries have banned GMO crops and have banned the sale of GM foods in their countries.

France

France has banned the growing of GM crops. As of May 16, 2012, France has re-instituted its ban on Monsanto’s MON810 GM corn from being grown in the country. A high court in France overturned a 2008 ban last year, but growing sentiment in France pushed the French minister of Agriculture to reinstate the ban this past May of 2012.

Madeira

The island country off of Portugal banned growing GMO crops in 2010.

Switzerland

The Swiss banned the growing of all genetically modified crops, as of 2005, and this ban has been extended through at least 2013.

Mexico

As of October 2013, the Twelfth Federal District Court ordered the Mexican government to ban the planting of all genetically modified maize (corn), as well as halt all commercial pilot test plots. As to whether this will translate to a complete ban of GMOs in Mexico remains to be seen.

Japan

Japanese law bans the growing of any genetically modified seeds or crops in Japan. However, Japanese food manufacturers are actively importing “Roundup Ready” GMO canola grown in Canada primarily to manufacture canola oil. As a result, scientists have found that the GMO canola variety is now growing wild along roadsides and ports that have been the supply line for canola importation.

Australia

Australians have been successful in banning GMO crops from being grown in South Australia and in Tasmania.

New Zealand

Kiwis have banned the growing of any GMO food in the country.

India

India’s cotton farmers experienced a disaster with their 2007-08 crop of cotton when they used Monsanto’s GM cotton seed. Over 125,000 Indian farmers committed suicide because their crops were so bad that they lost their farm and homes to banks.

In 2010, the government instituted a ban on GMO eggplant due to this tragedy and further information provided by scientists and agricultural experts. The Bt Brinjal variety was banned due to concerns of the seeds contaminating other self-sustaining crops.

The Monsanto seeds are also “terminator” seeds, which require the farmer to purchase the seeds – at a price 1,000 times the price of a normal seed – each year from Monsanto. With natural seeds, farmers often produce their own seeds to plant the next year.

Thailand

After GMO papayas began to contaminate other cropland in field trials, Thailand has been working to reduce their use of GMO crops. Japan then banned the importation of Thailand papayas (as well as papayas from Hawaii – which are now predominantly genetically modified).

Georgia

In December of 2013, the nation of Georgia passed a law banning the importation of genetically modified seeds into the country without a specific license to do so. The country’s Environment Minister Khatuna Gogaladze stated:

“The purpose of the bill is to create a single state system of bio safety that will regulate the use of living genetically modified organisms.”

Lots of very inaccurate information on this page you posted to …firstly the Indian farmers suicides wasn`t because of GMO`s, it was because of drought and not enough water to grow crops.

Brian

Speaking for Ireland, that was strictly to protect current agricultural business and ensure that GMOs wouldn’t get into non-GMO crops. It has nothing to do with health concerns.
You’re taking quite a lot out of context for your pet cause, and providing nothing but rhetoric to back your statements.

john s

That is, without a doubt the stupidest thing I have ever read on the internet. Congrats. “Only a few people live longer” Cripes!

maxxiscopolis

He is right. International Herald Tribute in 2002, the journalist Barbara Crossette said the following: “In South Africa, the life of a baby should be 66 years; AIDS has cut
that to 47. In Zimbabwe the drop has been to 43 years from 69. In
Botswana, it is 36 years, down from 70 years.” Child mortality skewed numbers tremendously in the pre-oil era (plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, etc…) When looking at the majority of the world, i/e outside the developed corridor, life expectancy has not shifted considerably in the past 100 years.

hydrocarbonharry

Clueless raving by another ideological LUDDITE

Meira Frankl

Mostly only a few people live longer!??!!? You’re saying that the average life span has not more than doubled?!?!?! Are you on crack?

Thøger RiveraThorsen

In fairness, the average life span could have doubled with only a few people living till 1000 years of age…

TheCrimsonFuckr

tldr, I did read when you said “no”, and that’s bullshit, there have been times in human history when the life expectancy was around 40 or lower.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

“The United States is one of the few countires that supports the use of GMO foods and the health of the nation shows how bad it is when consumed.”

That is about the poorest reasoning I have seen in a very, very long time. The short answer, of course, is “no”.
Unlike most other commenters here, I do think there are valid reasons to be skeptical of GMO use. This is absolutely not one of them.

Robert Alexander

well you seem to spread as many lies as this website does…

silence

What is your point, I am under the age of 15 and I constantly wish I grew up in a time when everything was as the God Force (or whatever you want to call it) placed it. The Energy that created us and continues to guide our lives is far more powerful than any egotistical human ever was or will be. We need to stop trying to modify the world and leave it to creation to do what it has always done. I honestly don’t have any more care about how the government deals with its problems (that it started), I just hope that in the next lifetime I am no human because they seem to be going nowhere but backwards (despite what I’ve been told), slowly but surely killing the Earth. Maybe someday people will listen to the silence, go into themselves, and finally realize what they are doing wrong. Your lifespan is meaningless if you do nothing worth while. I apologize if what I’ve written is not what you’d like to hear but this is what I’ve found to be true.

John John John

Farmers saving and passing on seeds from plants with desirable traits for the last ~20,000 years is the EXACT same thing as molecular biochemists in laboratories using viral vectors in transgenic engineering to transfer genetic material between organisms that are in different families or kingdoms, for the last 20 years. Anyone who considers the possibility that these processes might perhaps be different in some way is clearly scientifically illiterate and anti-science.

Jason Roder

You’re right, they are different: the scientist is going to do a better job, given his superior tools and knowledge.

John John John

Farmers saving and passing on seeds from plants with desirable traits
for the last ~20,000 years is the EXACT same thing as molecular
biochemists in laboratories using viral vectors in transgenic
engineering to transfer genetic material between organisms that are in
different families or kingdoms, for the last 20 years. Anyone who
considers the possibility that these processes might perhaps be
different in some way is clearly scientifically illiterate and
anti-science.

Jeff Gauch

Got it in one.

Aside from sequence, there’s no difference in DNA between species – otherwise genetic engineering wouldn’t work. The sequence doesn’t survive the digestive environment, so any regulatory genes we modify cannot effect us. That leaves the products of genes: proteins. Here’s a dirty little secret: your body neither knows, nor cares, where a protein comes from. It is either food or – far less common – a toxin. Proteins that are safe in one organism do not become toxic just because that protein is produced in a different organism.

It’s not like your digestive enzymes sit around going “Om nom nom, wait, is this a fish protein? I thought we were eating tomatoes, why the fuck is there fish protein? GAAAAAH CANCER ALL THE THINGS!!!” Otherwise Taco Del Mar would be one of the biggest carcinogens on the planet.

Bullet Gibson

“the EXACT same thing as molecular
biochemists in laboratories using viral vectors”.

No, it’s not. When they do it by “saving and passing on seeds from plants with desirable traits for the last ~20,000 years” THEN it will be, as you put it, “”the EXACT same thing”. Why do people feel the need to exaggerate?

Falcon D. Stormvoice

Going to the store is like, so totally the same thing as going to Church. Saying ‘hello’ is the >exact< same thing as saying 'salutations'.

Yeah, no two things are exactly the same, otherwise they'd be the same thing. It's almost criminal to waste any of the finite server space on the world wide web on such inanity. Next, they'll be telling us that analogies aren't comprised of 1:1 ratio comparisons.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Wow, anti-science even? How’s that for a scientific statement?

Azlorn Magus

“I always find it humorous when people don’t believe in science or scientific consensus, or peer reviewed studies yet they have no problem using computers, the internet, transportation, or any of the millions of other ways science has improved our lives.

If you really think all the scientists are wrong then shut your computer off, leave your house, and go live in the woods naked with only the tools you make yourself from other tools you made out in the woods like in minecraft survival.

If you’re not willing to do that then maybe, just maybe, you might want to give people who have been studying a particular subject their entire lives the benefit of the doubt until you can prove them wrong?”

~Azlorn

Bullet Gibson

The scientists in Germany, England, France, Belgium and many other countries disagree with you and GMOs are banned in Europe and most of the rest of the world. Where are you getting your scientific consensus from? Making it up?

Falcon D. Stormvoice

Germany also bans great video games for a lot of illogical reasons. You need to provide actual proof, not simply imply that Germany and France have some hidden proof that they are operating with.

Tom Boniecki

GMOs are banned in Europe and some other countries because of politics and a popular demand not because of science. Same as ban on gay marriage or marijuana.

BTW, farmers are suing in many of those countries for the right to plant GMOs and they are winning because the opposition can’t present any evidence to the courts that goes beyond “this just doesn’t feel right”.

Millie_Woods

The same scientists that say global warming is an unprescedented disaster. There’s no money in saying that global warming is a hoax or approving GMOs. More money…er I mean, more study is always needed.

TheCrimsonFuckr

That’s right, because if you want the real boo koo bucks, you become a scientist. So tired of all those elitist scientist making millions of dollars for their contributions. We need to stop giving scientists our tax dollars and never bail the scientists out again.

Millie_Woods

I’m opposed to bailouts for corporations and banks and faux-science. They all consume taxes with negative results.

Alan

GMO`s are not banned in these countries you mention only certain one`s are, not ALL gmo`s… where are you getting your false info from are you just making it up LOL

Check your facts, bullet-man. The National Academies for all of those countries believe that GMO is perfectly safe. The EU has cleared many crops for sale and cultivation but the individual countries are blocking it (read: not following their own rules).

Falcon D. Stormvoice

You don’t really have to test if it’s poisonous, since DNA is not toxic. All you have to test is whether the alteration went as planned, which can be done with a microscope.

The people who are concerned with poison are the anti-GMO brigade, who have run test after test to try and prove that there’s something wrong with genetically manipulating food, only to come up empty-handed.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Since we do not completely understand how genes work, ion theory an alteration could, as a side effect, make the organism produce toxins.

Falcon D. Stormvoice

Well, good thing we have the anti-science nutjobs doing test after test in vain.

But really, I precisely said that you can use a microscope to see that the alteration went as planned. You can even run toxicology tests. What kind of scientifically illiterate fool thinks we still test whether things are poisononous by feeding them to things until they get sick.

Well, except for the anti-science nutjobs who forcefeed corn to already sick rats until they expire just to ‘prove’ their point.

Shane

I live in a country without GMO and the stuff doesnt look like this…..it looks like it’s supposed to but it doesnt last as long maybe not as big…..but I can tell you it tastes a whole lot better because everything is always fresh….I say also I tend to be a lot healthier eating the non GMO food….I have crohns disease and I ‘ve went in remission both times I’ve went to Peru to live for extended amounts of time!

John Copley

I view gmos made by companies like the transformer and he-man cartoons in the 80s. They made the cartoons to sell toys. Monsanto and the like make gmp to sell their pesticides. I view cross pollination differently than making a plant that is more tolerant to soaking up chemicals.

Neurotic

Everyone is so smart. But what is the compulsion for everyone to be such assholes to eachother?

Mark Langlois

Natural Selection is genetic manipulation. We have been genetically manipulating our food for millennia, which I think is the point.
The problem with GMO foods isn’t that they are bad for you.
Its the PATENTS that companies like Monsanto have on them that makes them able to sue a farmer for growing crops from the seeds of his last crop, or suing his neighbor because of cross pollination..

Teresa Trujillo

Genetic selection and GMOs are not the same thing. Selection means you pick the best natural traits and breed to those standards, creating better looking, tasting, and/or more productive plants and animals. GMOs mean that you introduce genetic material from other sources (insects, viruses, etc) into an existing food source to give it qualities that the plant–and now animals–didn’t posses in its natural form. Very different processes with very different outcomes. Don’t let them lie to you!

gager

Nonsense…nature would try all combinations given enough time. There is no such thing as “natural” form.

Teresa Trujillo

Adding genetic material from dissimilar species has no basis in nature at all. GMOs create “frankenstein” plants and animals from unrelated genetic material.

Don’t let the big multi-national bio companies play on your lack of knowledge in biology basics to play with you emotions.

Read a high school biology text on genetics. Plants and animals don’t breed in nature. But, a GMO plant or animal will have genetic materials inserted from other life forms, including viruses and things that are dangerous to humans.

gager

Try understanding a biology text…all genes are made of the same genetic material. That is why a trait from a plant can be inserted into an animal. It is not frankenfood…it is a shortcut that would take a very long time in nature. That is why animals can eat plants and that is why traits from one plant can be applied to another plant.

Teresa Trujillo

Yes, I know that all genetic material is made from the same base material at a molecular level. But, all genetic information is not the same. A horse and a donkey can be mated together to produce an mule, but a mule cannot produce another mule because of mutations that are not compatible.

An ass is an ass, but not all idiots are created equal. Muleheads who adopt the multi-national corporate line that “we would have got there anyway several millennium from now if it wasn’t for our intellectual prowse” completely miss the point.

Mankind is already suffering from the untested results of frankenfood. It just might be several generations before your child’s grandchildren can no longer reproduce because their genetic material has been corrupted by your decisions today.

gager

You assume “suffering”. More research has been performed on GMO than on what people consider “normal” food. You should know that “normal” food may be dangerous to your health.

Teresa Trujillo

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw a straight line between the
food we put in our bodies and the science that allows more and more
poisons to enter the food chain.

Everything in life is dangerous at some level–even your house cat.

Studies with GMO corn and heritage corns with wild squirrels show that the squirrels will refuse to eat the GMOs but devour the heritage corn. Why?

At the same time that GMOs have started dominating the marketplace, we have had an explosion in gluten intolerance, diabetes, and obesity. All of these are issues that start with the food we eat.

Most GMOs are designed to allow the use of more and more pesticides and herbicides–herbicides that break down into artificial estrogens in the body, There have been documented drops in male fertility and increases in female reproductive cancers–all tied to increasing estrogens. P.S. estrogens are a known cause of weight gain.

gager

“…and the science that allows more and more
poisons to enter the food chain.” Laughable, you know nothing about which you post. Take a look at the food pyramid endorsed by the government. That is the cause of obesity and diabetes.

cmac

I see your logic, because spider and salmon pollen will eventually make it on to a corn field in Nebraska. Brilliant!

gager

A gene sequence that gives a spider or a salmon a specific attribute is not the same as a spider or salmon gene. Every single stalk of corn in a field has a different genetic signature and through mutation it would eventually have the gene sequence that replicates the attribute that a spider or a salmon have.

MargaretRC

Gene transplants are just a different way to accomplish the same goals as selecting and breeding, only faster–and with more options. Do you know how many foreign genes from other organisms all of us have in our own genomes–that got there naturally? I agree with Carl E Mott III that the whole patenting thing is a bit of a problem, but other than that, I see no scientific draw back to GMO. And I used to be a rabid anti GMO. But the science just doesn’t support that stance.

cmac

No, they really aren’t. The changes of salmon DNA gently blowing across a corn field and magically fertilizing the corn to make a new hybrid are …ZERO.

MargaretRC

True, but that could happen just as easily with selectively bred plants as GM plants. GM isn’t some some special process that makes seeds more likely to fly away and cross contaminate other plants/fields. That’s the nature of plants. Organic farmers should not, granted, lose organic certification from accidental fertilization like that, but it’s not unique to GM.

Stacy

I don’t think people mind this kind of modification. The issue I have with GMO’s is when they make “RoundUp Ready” corn

gager

Why?

joecrouse

the round up ready gene actually occurred naturally through natural selection. Look up how they discovered it.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

The issue is not one of “it’s unnatural, it’s bad”. The issue is that round-up ready corn spurs the increased use of roundup instead of pursuing natural alternatives, which can lead to more roundup trickling down into ground water drinking water supplies, as well as the problems introduced by the extensive monoculture that this leads to.
Plus, of course, the power balance introduced by this, which is not in small farmers’ favor.

http://www.jonentine.com Jon Entine

Natural is not safer. Many natural pesticides are more toxic and less targeted than synthetics. Glyphosate is less toxic than salt and is not mutagenic or carcinogenic and is biodegradable. Levels in water supplies are 100s of times lower than are found to be potentially harmful. GMOs do not promote monoculture any more than conventional or poor farming organic farmers. More small farmers worldwide use GMOs than large farmers…85-15 ration by farms.

Carl E. Mott III

Plant modification has created most fruits and vegetables we know and eat and I don’t find that a problem, it’s the patenting of these newer varieties that is the problem, especially when the wind blows and they cross pollinate making farmers down wind liable.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/ Jon Entine

Carl, there is not one documented case of ‘cross pollination making farmers downwind liable’–not one on record. That’s a scare myth perpetrated by those ideologically opposed to GM crops. Cross pollination does occur but unless it’s deliberate, there is no liability. Never been case prosecuted in the world for unintended cross pollination.

CLQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser The first field was accidentally contaminated, but Monsanto sued this Saskatchewan farmer because he kept the seed from the first field and planted it the next year. They were successful. I am all for GMO food, I think it’s a brilliant application of solid science, but I don’t like the fact that they can do these sorts of things and are supported by our courts.

sky

No, CLQ, you are simply passing off an internet lie. He was sued because he replanted GMO and then sprayed everything with roundup so that he could get the benefits of the roundup ready crop without paying for it. This guy knowingly planted GMO crops, doused it with herbicide, and got made a hero. Laughably, this is the very best that the anti-GMO folks can do when asked for an example of the terribleness of Monsanto.

Guest

breeding is different from mucking about with dna codes of creatures that would never breed like jellyfish and plants…

Cecile Charles

I prefer non GMO foods. everything that is GMO tastes like cardboard.

Nicky Altieri

This above NOT GMO, this is the result of hybridization, tow types of corn pollinated together, two types of broccoli pollinated. Genetically Modified Foods cross a specie of one kingdom with another. For instance taking the gene, and most often several, from an mammal and adding it to a plant. Or a bacteria with a plant, or genes from a fungus with an animal, like a Salmon crossed with genes from a spider.

Lisa McPherson

There is a huge difference between breeding to optimize genetic material that a species has, and hacking genes from a completely unrelated species onto it. There is a huge difference between cross-breeding different $fruit plants of the same species that are very fleshy, and splicing a fish gene onto a plant, in hopes of making it more frost resistant.

Pat

Natural breeding is a LONG way from the kind of artificial genetic manipulation being used by such organizations as Monsanto. I m surprised any educated person would equate the two!!

Jari N

How cute to call it genetic modification. It’s called selective breeding.

WalterBannon

not too bright, are you

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

Same thing. The tools we have for it these days are much improved, better understood and tested in labs before being release into wider, more open testing environments.

cmac

Not the same thing, no matter how many times you repeat it. There is a clear definition of the two, and they are not the same.

19strings

I think part of the reason the GMO debate is so complicated, is because the motivations of capitalists do not always align with the best interest of everyone and everything else. (gulf oil spill anyone?) That a company like Monsanto – whose herbicide applications have had unintended consequences on the monarch butterfly, for example, is also involved in researching and producing GMO’s, is part of what makes folks bristle. Monsanto seems suspect because they don’t always get it right – but would never acknowledge that. In my view, the decision to destroy milkweed to protect crops has created new problems that may be worse than what that was meant to solve. But we hear no acknowledgment from Monsanto that perhaps destroying milkweed was not the best plan.

So, what may be valid science insofar as GMO’s are concerned, may look dubious to the average consumer who is also aware that the profit motive can lead to bad decisions, (and in other industries, too many Superfund sites). Is it reasonable to be suspicious of the motivations of profit driven companies? Absolutely. The tobacco industry alone has certainly proven that they will say anything to get consumers to believe a harmful product isn’t harmful for the purposes of self preservation and profit. So, it’s hardly surprising then, that people are suspicious of corporations motives when it comes to GMO’s and anything else that either is harmful, or seems harmful.

One reason the science angle is failing to reach doubters – is because the corrupting influence of money and power is real, and as long as profiteers are the ones deciding the best way to manage our shared resources (such as BP, Exxon, Monsanto, Enron, etc), chances are good, the average consumer and probably the environment are on the short end of the stick. Does that mean the science on GMO’s is wrong or misleading? Not necessarily. But the behavior of so many greedy industries/corporations has sewn reasonable doubt for many consumers, and who can blame them?.. Belief in science alone is not enough because unfortunately, on the spectrum of human behavior, exploitation is always possible and even the least informed consumer knows at least that much. How do you reach them?

Ofay Cat

Interesting comment. The problem with allowing ‘others’ so do the deciding on what happens with big issues around food and energy production is that he very vocal and often professional protest class from the left would have us shut down all energy projects or make them unprofitable to satisfy the carbon haters.

Further, most do not understand what it takes to feed SEVEN BILLION on a daily basis.

Huge population reduction would be helpful and welcomed by the left, but that is impractical at this time.

simus1

Organo-morons have way too much time on their hands.

walrus sucks like the rest

Sharks with frikkin’ laser beams…..

Tamara Copple

Please provide the original source of these photos and some documentation that describes what we are looking at. I need verifiable facts, not more facebook ready memes, to combat the GMO haters.

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

I just did a quick check for the banana one. There’s an image of a “wild-type” banana that matches the one above. There’s a number of citations in the section around the image should you care to follow them up.

Except this was NOT done by injecting genes from some other species entirely, which was not possible until recently; so all this was done in the past by merely crossbreeding within the same species. BIG difference there.

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

You should search for “Horizontal Gene Transfer”. The argument your trying to make happens in nature already.

Bob Brown

In the Caribbean we have been exporting non GMO bananas for decades. In my 45 years I’ve never seen one that looks like the one pictured here – I call bullsh*t.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/ Jon Entine

Bob, I believe you missed the point. Non genetically engineered bananas have been modified over hundreds of years, mostly in a laboratory, to get to the current Cavendish and other popular bananas. The point of the graphic is that there is no such thing as “natural” foods or crops…they have all been modified by man. If we only ate “natural” foods, as they evolved naturally in nature, you would be eating the banana that you see pictured here. All food today has been genetically altered by humans.

The Cavendish was not created by genetic modification, but by selective breeding. That selective process may have happened in a laboratory with a greenhouse attached, but it is not genetic modification (which by definition is taking the DNA of one species and placing it into the DNA of another species.

Dave

Do not argue with the folks who don’t like GMO’s. If they honestly label all the GMO foods then all those dumb, liberal, whiny, retards will starve and America can make a come back.

ronalddwyer

Really?? Using this logic what will happen to humans?

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

We have the fossil record to show what *has* happened. What *will* happen is open to debate.

Patsy McMichael

There is a difference between grafting strong or desirable crop baring stems onto strong root baring stems….or weeding out the weak crops so they don’t seed and get replanted and altering the basic genetic structure of the seed nucleus. Humans have been doing selective “breeding” of plants and animals…which is favoring the desirable product for reproduction over the undesirable….since human began cultivating crops and live stock, but 100 or a thousand years ago there was no knowledge of genetics within the cells….today there is. You can’t compare what humans did 100 or 1000 years ago to what is being done in a lab today.

montana83

So, if it occurs slowly it is good. If you use science instead of stone age trial and error it is bad. Uh huh. Whatever.

sky

Why, not, Patsy? We are simply doing what they did with more intelligence. It’s called progress. You know, the same thing that made it possible for you to post on the “internet”.

Charles S. Couraud

There is a HUGE difference between selective cross pollination and adding say mackerel genes into plant life. I have had personal experiences with Genetically altered plants producing very different vegetables each generation you replant seeds by saving the seeds from the previous years crop. Many new GMOs are not sustainable or predictable. In my own experience.

guest

No, there isn’t.

fjord

ha. my broccoli already looks like that lower right picture.
got too hot and it bolted. Or I planted too late.
Also, the new fad is a broccoli with more stem than “head”. Yuck.

Alexander Meander

i do not think the language here is accurate. or rather, it portrays the idea that there is not a difference between GMOs & trait selection. genetic modification in a laboratory is much different than trait selection via seeds through the generations.

scientist guy

hey monsanto, i like your propaganda site. it look so authentic.

Thøger RiveraThorsen

Genetic Engineering is not the same as selective breeding. Selective breeding is much slower and more restricted in what is possible than GE. Equating the two is no more literate that saying “natural is good”.

Tracy Armbruster

This is not strictly true… ‘Genetic modification’ means that a gene from one completely separate organism – like the bacteria, bacillus thuringiensis, for instance, which is inserted into the DNA of BT corn – so in essence it is a combination of two separate organisms. The above modifications noted in the pictures are as a result of selective breeding or hybridisation.

chia49504

There is no proof of this whatsoever since they haven’t changed in the last 200 millennia. This is a statement made to justify GMO foods, and to not cause problems with their cash flow.

http://intentionallyhomeless.org/ Gold

“There is no proof of this whatsoever since they haven’t changed in the last 200 millennia.”

Citation needed.

Darin

This is probably the least informed conversation of GMOs I have ever seen.
1. Selective Hybridization is NOT GMO, and yes, even selective hybridization has led to a **great loss of nutritional value** for our food, modern corn is so nutritionless they only give it as feed for the last few years of a cow’s life because THEY DIE EATING IT
2. GMO is not controlled, the genes are changed randomly by spraying in the general area of the trait, and the results are quarantined and tested for allergens (meaning things that can kill you, not just give you a runny nose). When they find the least offensive strand, they market it, but they don’t test it long term for health side effects.
3. GMOs are BANNED in three dozen developed countries, and they all wonder how the US, with “freedom of the press”, continues to allow suppression of GMO labelling
4. Roundup (Glyphosate) is being sprayed at record levels because of the GMO strain of roundup ready crops, creating super weeds that they are now using Agent Orange to kill (the same chemical that wrecked our Vietnam Veterans). Roundup is also banned in several countries because independent studies show it has neurotoxic effects and several people wonder why the epidemic raise in Autism seems to correspond exactly with the raise in use of Roundup.
These plants might not look appetizing, but I am sure they contain all the vitamins and minerals we need to thrive nutritionally, because Nature wasn’t concerned with making plants that can survive a long trip to the grocery store and wait for days to be bought and eaten.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/ Jon Entine

This is probably the least informed conversation of GMOs I have ever seen.

(1) Selective hybridization is exactly the same as genetic engineering although GE is more precise and far safer, as novel proteins are tested for allergenicity and overall testing is done, unlike in hybridization. Corn is quite nutritious, depending on its variety, and is a great source of a variety of vitamins. There is not one documented case of any animal dying from eating either hybrid or GMO corn. Much of organic corn is hybrid as well.

(2) Modern GE is extremely controlled, with trackers inserted and monitoring, so geneticists can pinpoint with precision where the gene has been inserted and track its effects (which we know in general are extremely limited). Modern techniques “spraying genes randomly”. That’s pure hogwash, and reflects an ignorance of modern GE. Allergens are in all foods. GE foods are the only foods tested for allergens, and are fare less potentially dangerous than organic foods or non-GMO conventional foods, which do not undergo allergenic testing or tracking. There have been numerous longterm studies on GE foods that have shown no harmful effects, which is why every major international oversight agency in food and genetics and general science has endorsed the safety and sustainability of GE foods.

(3) GE is banned in 2 or 3 countries in the world but not one major industrial country (Peru is one of the three). Almost every major industrial country uses GM for animal feed and almost every one allows it as food; no mainstream scientific agency in the world has recommended banning GM foods–not one.

(4) Glyphosate use has grown, as it replaces more toxic chemicals such as atrazine or others even far more toxic. Overall, the toxic component of agrochemicals has down as glyphosate use has gone up–bulk liquid are meaningless, the only real measure of impact is LD50 rates. Glyphosate is less toxic than table salt. According to every major oversight agency in the world, glyphosate is not carcinogenic, it is not an endocrine disruptor and it is biodegradable, meaning it does not impact ground water. Glyphosate is not “consumed” in biologically meanigful amounts so attempting to link it to one condition or disease is absurd. There is no biological link that’s been shown between autism and glyphosate–zero–in any study;none between glyphosate and any serious health problem. Correlation is not causation. The rise in autism also is correlated with the rise in organic food sales; deaths and illnesses linked to consumption of organic foods from fecal contamination and natural bacteria like e coli; and to rise in vitamin supplements–all meaningless correlations. .Agent orange has never been used on crops. 2-4d is a pesticide used on crops (but differently at a different times than glyphosate). It was an ingredient in Agent Orange but was not the ingredient that caused human harm. Here is an article explaining its use in agriculture: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonentine/2014/01/06/agent-orange-gmo-after-usda-backs-24-d-seeds-michael-pollan-marion-nestle-lead-activist-hype-of-discredited-link/

The old plants shown have negligible nutritional value in comparison to modern varieties.

Botanist

This is so ignorant. Those have been selectively bred not genetically modified. Its not the same! Thinking so makes you look worst than the most ignorant of the anti-gmo activists.

TRUTH

These pictures are ridiculous examples by the way! These pictures are of the ancestors of vegetables that have been changed over time by selective seed saving of humans. WHICH IS NOT GENETIC MODIFICATION!!! Genetic modification did not give us the vegetables we know today! Selective seed saving did!!!

Marie Fontaine

I would say this is more like selective breeding rather then genetically modified. Take for instance wild cabbage, which modern broccoli came from, we didn’t genetically modify a single species to become broccoli over night. It took years of selective breeding by changing the growing environment to eventually get broccoli, unlike using chemicals to genetically modify a plant and having that chemical affect our health. I’m not saying that all GMO’s are bad, in fact I think GMO’s can be a great thing. We just have to make sure, when having this debate, we know the difference between selective breeding over time and GMO.

Shaaayyy

so what? is gmo food safe? I need some pros …

Dave Laneve

Bullshit, GMO is recent, tampering with genetics, the examples they are showing are simply selective breeding, NOT GMO.